After 55 years, Ward 4 moderator is stepping down

By JOHN KOZIOL

Wednesday

Oct 28, 2009 at 3:15 AM

After 55 years as the Ward 4 moderator, Alice Haynes is calling it a career following next Tuesday's municipal election.

"My health is not as good as I wish it to be," explained Haynes, 87, on Tuesday of her decision not to seek another term as the lead election official in Ward 4. "I have arthritis in the knees so I can't be as active as I have been in the past. I have to kind of cut down on the activity if you get what I mean."

Haynes was elected to her first two-year term as ward moderator on the same Nov. 2, 1954, ballot that saw then-Laconia Mayor Gerard L. Morin, a Democrat, fail in his bid to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Styles Bridges.

"Yes, I am going to miss it very much," Haynes said of the prospect of not having to spend election days at the Ward 4 polling station, "but when you come to the point that you have to depend on others to do the work, you kind of feel that it's time to kind of relax a little bit, and that's what I'm up to. I would like to stay on because I've enjoyed working with the people in the ward and the people who came to vote."

Five years ago, on the occasion of her 50th year as moderator, Haynes was feted by her ward co-workers with flowers, a cake and later, dinner.

"It was a complete surprise," Haynes said, recalling it as one of her fondest memories as the Ward 4 moderator.

Looking back to the beginning, Haynes said all the ballots used in the elections of the 1950s were paper ballots that had to be hand-counted, a process that could take most of election night. Now, although the ballot is still paper, machines do the tallying, which speeds the process along significantly.

Today as then, "it's hard to get voters out for the local elections," Haynes said. "They (voters) don't seem to think it's worthwhile, but they don't realize that the people they're electing locally are the people who set the local taxes, so if they get more people out to vote maybe their taxes will go down."

Haynes thanked and praised her fellow Ward 4 election officials and while she is departing the scene, there may be another Haynes stepping in soon to fill her shoes. Mark S. Haynes, who is Alice Haynes' son, is the sole candidate for Ward 4 moderator in next Tuesday's election.

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